A guide to maximizing your f2p experience.

Since the current f2p model is obviously what is going live Thursday, I think it is a good time to start min/maxing the cartel shop.

Edit: This just in. Players can buy cartel unlocks and sell them on the GTN (auction house) to other players for in game currency.
This means that minor purchases such as "hide helm" or "action bar" or "color match" can be made with credits through the auction house or through other players. F2P accounts can only carry 250k credits, so small purchases can be made through this method. However, larger purchases such as "artifact gear unlock" will most likely be sold for more credits than you can carry.

Okay,
First off.
Do not buy secondary currency, cartel coins, in small amounts.

For your dollar you get 90.2 coins if you buy the small pack. If you choose to by the larger pack you get 137.5 coins. That adds up, quickly. You might think you are just going to make one purchase now, but as they add more and more things (features like addons, macros, items like whatever) you will find yourself being "nickle and dime'd". The people who end up not getting their money's worth out of f2p models are those who think "This will be the last purchase" because so long as you are playing, there will be another purchase. Its just a matter of time.

So what do you want to buy? First off, dulfy has complied a great list (as usual).

Before we get into that. You need to decide how many characters you are going to play. This game is very alt centric so you might want to think long and hard on that.

If you are a one character person, select the "per character" unlocks instead of the "per account". If you are going to play two or more characters it is better to spend the money for the full account unlock. Why? Because it costs about as much as unlocking the perk for two characters.
IE: Unlock: Additional Quickbar 250 per character, 540 for entire account
Yes, it costs an additional 40 coins, but if you ever decide to make a third character it will save you 210 coins! Be preemptive about your purchase. Only you know if you are going to be a one character, two character, or twelve character player. I, personally, error on the side of caution when it comes to something like this because it can get expensive to remedy, quick.

So what are the important unlocks for swtor?

Authorization: Artifact Equipment 1200 per character, 2700 for entire account
Note: This allows you to wear epics. Epic gear really starts at 48. You will not be able to do much at 50 without this perk. This is one you might want to purchase per character. Buying it account wide is 2.25 times the price of buying it for one character. EA knew this is an important unlock and is charging you a lot for it. Furthermore, this unlock applies to "story and pvp gear". Which most likely means Rakata (story mode gear) and PVP gear. Meaning that PVPers will probably get better mileage out of this purchase.

Unlock: Additional Quickbar 250 per character, 540 for entire account
Note: Each bar has 12 slots, you start out with two bars, so 24 slots. Most classes, at most, only need 30 slots and you will have 36. I suggest buying, account wide, one bar. Just one. You can use your spell book for quick travel.

Weekly Pass: Warzones 240
Weekly Pass: Operations 240
Note: These do not allow you to do ranked or hard mode or nightmare mode. If you want to do those, subscribe. At 240 coins a week, with the 5500 coin pack, you can buy 5.7 months of either WZ or OPS. That's 40 dollars. For almost 6 months. 86 dollar value (15/mo subscription) if you are just a pvpr or just a pver. Think about that. You can access half the game for just under half the price. Good deal.

Everything else in the shop is pretty much cosmetic or not terribly prohibitive.

One thing I noticed, is that there is a TRAP ITEM.

Unlock: Cargo Hold Access 475 per character, 1050 for entire account

Unlock access to your ship’s cargo hold

Gain storage for 80 items
Your Cargo Hold can be accessed on your Ship or from the Fleet
Subscribers and Preferred Status Players have automatic access to this feature.

If you have enough coins to buy this item, you should already have it. The lowest amount of coins you can buy is 450. So you have to buy the next size up which puts your above the "bought 500" threshold. If you have 500 coins from being an ex subscriber, you are already preferred status. DO NOT BUY THIS.

I played TOR a while back with the subscription model...nothing against your awesome post about getting the most out of it post F2P transition, but this is very sad to me...I thought "maybe I'll come back when it goes F2P" but as someone with limited funds, and someone who is most definitely an altaholic seeing alot of these microtransactions makes me wanna never reinstall it again sadly :-( It was a cool game, but not worth it.

Authorization: Artifact Equipment 1200 per character, 2700 for entire account
Note: This allows you to wear epics. Epic gear really starts at 48. You will not be able to do much at 50 without this perk. This is one you might want to purchase per character. The cost is that of three characters + 100 coins. EA knew this is an important unlock and is charging you a lot for it. Furthermore, this unlock applies to "story and pvp gear". Which most likely means Rakata (story mode gear) and PVP gear. Meaning that PVPers will probably get better mileage out of this purchase.

you can get epics at earlier lvls too like the epic barrels that you get outta Esseless and Black Talon, not to mention epic quality low lvl gear if your a twink pvper as well and just low epics in general so it doesnt hurt to get for low lvls as well as endgame

I played TOR a while back with the subscription model...nothing against your awesome post about getting the most out of it post F2P transition, but this is very sad to me...I thought "maybe I'll come back when it goes F2P" but as someone with limited funds, and someone who is most definitely an altaholic seeing alot of these microtransactions makes me wanna never reinstall it again sadly :-( It was a cool game, but not worth it.

You can still play alts and don't need most of the unlocks (just the one for more characters).

Well, just calculated how much I would have to spend to unlock everything I like/want/need forever... 12575 plus any weekly unlocks.

My plan on staying subscribed until I can unlock everything doesn't seem very viable when it would take me more than 2 years to unlock everything... Might as well just invest into crime lord cartel packs...

Does anyone know if we can use our coins to unlock stuff for other players who are on f2p ?

Well, just calculated how much I would have to spend to unlock everything I like/want/need forever... 12575 plus any weekly unlocks.

My plan on staying subscribed until I can unlock everything doesn't seem very viable when it would take me more than 2 years to unlock everything... Might as well just invest into crime lord cartel packs...

Does anyone know if we can use our coins to unlock stuff for other players who are on f2p ?

Seems that you can, somehow.
For the cargo access they have

Makes a great gift for another player!

Of course, its not. But w/e.

The thing about f2p is that you are going to spend too much if you go for everything. That's how the model makes like... way too much money. Some guys are like "I need that champion and ALL ITS SKINS RAWR!" and they drop 20 dollars every 3 weeks on riot points.

If you want it all, the more cost efficient way is to just subscribe. That's true of many hybrid models but for swtors its just... A little too true.

If you want it all, the more cost efficient way is to just subscribe. That's true of many hybrid models but for swtors its just... A little too true.

In fact, it's to the point where, while I was considering coming back as, at least, a preferred customer, seeing all the stuff they nickle-and-dime you for cartel coin-wise (especially the really small stuff like the option to hide your helmet...really, Bioware?) I'm now strongly considering waiting to see if their free-to-play model becomes less restrictive in the future or I actually have the money to pay for a full subscription.

Still, thanks for taking the time to post this for players who might still be willing to give the F2P model of TOR a try, despite the absurd restrictions, and thereby hopefully helping them to waste as little money as possible.

all might not be lost since you are a former sub you wont be a f2p person but a preffered something (another status) which removes some f2p restrictions more + if you sub 1 month you get ""free"" (not sure if enough "" tbh:P) cartel points for the time you subbed before

TOR tried to compete with WoW, and that's how we got to this mess in the first place.

I wonder what will happen when TOR goes up against the other F2P games currently out there...?

It most likely won't be pretty.

It does not have a competitive model for the f2p market. However, I believe this is due to technical limitations rather than desire.
I think we might see a f2p 2.0 in about 6 months or so where many of the functional restrictions will be replaced by optional features.

It does not have a competitive model for the f2p market. However, I believe this is due to technical limitations rather than desire.
I think we might see a f2p 2.0 in about 6 months or so where many of the functional restrictions will be replaced by optional features.

*sigh* And that line of thinking just reminds of TOR's release, where it became evident that the game could have used a bit more polish before launch. And how they championed the Legacy system before it was truly implemented. You'd think they would've learned about pushing things out too soon....